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A Quiet, Ancestral Farm Life in Western France (20 photos)

Over the course of several months recently, Reuters photographer Stephane Mahe visited and photographed a farmer named Jean-Bernard Huon, on his farm in western France. Huon, now 70, grew up here, and deliberately lives a traditional, non-mechanized farm life, favoring ox teams over tractors. From a Reuters article: “When farm machinery revolutionized French agriculture in the years after World War Two, a young Jean-Bernard Huon turned his back on the new technology. Half a century later, in a corner of southern Brittany on France’s west coast, Huon still uses oxen to plow his fields, determined to preserve an ancestral, peasant way of life.”

French farmer Jean-Bernard Huon, 70, carries hay at his farm in Riec-sur-Belon, France, on January 27, 2018. Huon’s manual approach to subsistence farming makes him a rarity in the European Union’s biggest agricultural economy. He shuns France’s hypermarkets, instead selling his pork, veal and butter to those who visit his ramshackle farm. (Stephane Mahe / Reuters)
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/02/a-quiet-ancestral-farm-life-in-western-france/553646/